


just pure creation

by metonymy



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 08:27:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 7,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4093999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonymy/pseuds/metonymy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr ficlets, stored here for posterity. Chapters range from General to Explicit; individual chapters will receive more specific warnings as needed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. just a shade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Ariadne couldn't believe it was finally happening."

But there he was, flickering at the edge of a crowd of projections, looking even paler than he had in reality. He was like an ink drawing on a blank page, dark slicked hair and the charcoal suit she’d loved, but the hollow eyes burning with unquiet rage - that was never an expression he’d borne in reality, not even at the very end.

Ariadne closed her eyes as Eames drew his gun and tried to hold back her tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sentence prompt from @xaedificare.


	2. waiting.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for [this graphic](http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lo9csyOkq71qa3j7jo1_500.jpg) on tumblr, originally by @bbodysnatchers.

Arthur isn’t much good at waiting. Never has been; he skipped a grade, enlisted the second he could, rose through the ranks faster than anyone expected. He knew about dreamsharing long before it was presented as an option and he did things he wasn’t proud of to get a crack at it before anyone else. Now that money’s no object, he gladly pays it out to have things as promptly as he’d like, presented to him with a breathless hush of anticipation. He lets the airlines ferry him around the world and works his way through jobs with some indefinable thing tugging him ever onwards.

It’s Ariadne who teaches him the value of patience. Which isn’t to say that she’s any good at waiting for things either; he listens to her frustrated and half-crying down the phone over the petty tyranny of her professors and the projects that fall into the gap between her imagination and the constraints of physics. But she’s stubborn, more stubborn than he is by half, and she refuses to give up a goal she’s worked towards for so long for the easy satisfaction of mind crime. She wants that diploma. And Arthur wants her. So he waits: in her apartment while she leaps out of bed to draw something before it escapes her grasp, in a series of hotel rooms all over Paris when she’s too busy with projects and finals to have him invading her space and distracting her with kisses, saying words he never thought he’d say over a secured line as he works another recon job. Because when she finally joins him they are going to be amazing, and it’s the first thing he’s found that’s worth waiting for.


	3. convertible.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for [this image.](http://41.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2ksug6OFd1qmh3txo1_500.jpg)

“Some getaway driver you are,” Ariadne tells him when she comes back to find him drowsing in the hot sunshine. He can feel the faint sting of a sunburn starting on the backs of his hands, the notch of his open collar. The convertible was her idea, but he’s coming to appreciate it when he doesn’t have a face full of her wind-whipped curls.

“If you were actually pulling a job I’d be awake right now,” he says, eyes still closed against the sun. He hears her vault into the car and then there’s suddenly shade and something resting atop his head. He looks at her with incredulity when he’s pulled it off and discovers that she bought him a Stetson.

“It was that or a Rangers cap,” she tells him unrepentantly, and he can feel the skin on his forehead creasing as she leans over to kiss his cheek.


	4. dressing down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for [this image on tumblr.](http://anachronistique.tumblr.com/post/26605309321/06-100-joseph-gordon-levitt-its-not-as)

It’s not as though she’s never seen Arthur out of a suit. He knows how to do his job, how to blend in, how to disappear into a crowd so that a mark can’t finger him later. And, of course, she’s seen him in nothing at all.

But it still makes her smile when he puts aside the vests and pinstripes for something a little more comfortable, a little softer. She likes resting her cheek against the fuzzy lambswool, the quiet shushing noise of his corduroys, the way he’ll reach out and wrap her in his coat if she shivers. His hair is soft under her fingers as she brushes it out of his face and it falls right back down. It’s as much of a pose as the pulled-tight tie and pocket square. He just doesn’t mind as much when she rumples him up a little bit.

“Adds authenticity,” he tells her, and smiles.


	5. it's moments like this

It’s moments like this that keep them coming back to this, even when they know they shouldn’t, even when both of them know it’s a terrible idea. Because her mouth makes him forget just how weird kissing actually is, and because it sends a thrill through him from his chest down to the tips of his fingers and toes, in a way that he thought all the songs and novels were lying about until now. Because his hands fit perfectly at the back of her head and the small of her back, broad and warm and pulling her close as he keeps kissing and kissing her till she can’t breathe, can’t remember that she shouldn’t even be here, should be taking an exam on environmental design instead of invading some billionaire’s head. Because he can’t imagine ever getting enough of that crooked smile of hers and making her gasp when he pushes her scarves aside and nips at the skin of her neck. Because she loves rumpling his perfect pressed shirts and pulling on his tie till he bends down to reach her and licks into her mouth and makes her make all sort of embarrassing ridiculous noises.

It’s not what makes her stay with his team even when she gets better offers. It’s not what sends him back to Paris again and again when he doesn’t even like the city that much. It’s not what makes her propose to him even though they’re only in the same room once every six weeks, or what makes him accept.

But it helps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @annagetsthefabulousbabes, who wanted kissing.


	6. a sorta fairytale

“So you’re really a prince,” Ariadne said flatly.

“Yes.”

“You just play at being a bandit and redistributing wealth.”

“Not exactly, but close enough.”

“You could actually make an offer for my hand without having to elope and shock every subject of my guardian’s kingdom.”

Arthur swallowed hard. “Yes?”

“And you haven’t kissed me yet because?” Her brows were raised in that way that betokened utter stubbornness.

“Because it would be unchivalrous?”

“Oh, go hang your chivalry,” she said, and Arthur found himself pinned against a tree as the princess did her best to climb up him and kiss him senseless. Once he figured out what she was doing and hoisted her up, it all became much easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> excerpted from a much longer and never finished fairy tale for @nessismore.


	7. trick or treat

Arthur didn’t think much of Halloween. He wore costumes and played tricks every time he went on a job, though not perhaps to the same degree as Eames did; he never cared much for bats and spiders; and his taste in sweets ran more to chocolate so dark it was almost bitter.

What with helping Dom flee the country, he’d missed a few Octobers in the States as the children grew old enough to understand the holiday. And Arthur definitely wasn’t expecting to find out that Ariadne loved Halloween almost as much as the kids. But he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face when he saw the array of pumpkins bearing images of Munch’s Scream and the Starry Night. And he laughed when he found out that Ariadne and Phillipa were both dressed as princesses, with James as a very tiny dragon. All three bore expectant faces.

Arthur accepted Princess Phil’s decree and headed out into the October evening as a knight in shining pinstripes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @nessismore


	8. hold your breath, count to ten

She does her best not to think about him, when he’s gone. She refuses to become Penelope, waiting and weaving; she refuses her namesake and abandonment on a beach. She takes her own jobs, creates designs and teaches them to other extractors, stays out late in bars with men and women and dances till dawn, lives as if she hasn’t got a single care in the world.

But when she falls into bed, when she’s about to slide into a natural and dreamless sleep, whether it’s at ten at night or two in the afternoon, she closes her eyes and holds her breath and hopes for a moment that he’ll be there when she wakes up. Legs tangled with hers, the faded scent of his cologne in her sheets, hair mussed and face creased from the pillow, and a slow smile spreading when he sees her there beside him.

He’s done it before, she tells herself as she falls toward sleep. He can do it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @nessismore, based on that image prompt.


	9. office romance

Ariadne rolls her eyes when Eames tells her Arthur likes her. “He can’t stand me,” she says, ruthlessly quashing her own feelings about the dark-haired accountant down. “He hates my music and my decorations and my interpretations of the dress code, and he really hates that I don’t have my whole next quarter planned out like he does.”

Eames smiles at her and raises an eyebrow. “But he brings you coffee every morning. He’s never done that for me.”

The next day, when Arthur brings her her coffee, she holds up a bakery bag. “Scone?”


	10. posthumans.

Arthur has never seen the need for more than one posthuman on a team. It just muddies the waters. Egos get in the way. Of course, he’s perfectly good at keeping his ego in check, even when he’s springing from wall to ceiling to floor like gravity has no meaning. Which it doesn’t, for him.

So he bristles a little when Cobb brings in the girl, her face alight with curiosity and a keen intellect. Because who is she, and why do they need her?

And then she folds space in on him, bending the very rules of physics he’s so used to manipulating, and Arthur swears it’s not just her power that’s making his knees go weak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @stitchingatthecircuitboard on tumblr.


	11. and darling, when your feet are cold, wait up, I'm coming home.

They’re always leaving each other. It’s a hazard of their lives, Arthur going off on jobs, Ariadne leaving for research trips, they might only spend a few days together and then be gone for weeks.

And they’re all right being alone. Arthur spent years living in hotels, Ariadne’s been quite content living in her little garret and enjoying her bohemian Parisian life.

But they love coming home to each other. Putting fresh sheets on the bed, making sure there’s fresh coffee and a bottle of wine tucked away. Being all right with solitude doesn’t mean they love being alone. Or at least, they don’t love it more than they love each other.


	12. the renaissance faire.

Arthur is grumbling.

“They’re historically inaccurate,” he says, over and over. And Eames is with him on this one, because there is fun and then there is trampling roughshod over centuries of tradition and history to eat turkey legs and fried pickles.

Ariadne just grins at them both, because it’s certainly not her fault that the mark loves Renaissance Faires instead of being a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and her job is not to create historical accuracy. Her job is to create a believable dream.

So when they go under for a test run, she’s more concerned about how there’s a maze woven in between the vendors’ booths and the food stalls, about the little placards announcing “We Accept Master Card and Lady Visa,” about the feeling of the hot summer air and the way the grass has been crisped by the sun and crunches under their feet. Less concerned about the proper armor on the projections jousting down the hill.

And the best part of a dream is that her corset is actually entirely comfortable and she can wear a velvet gown without sweating herself into a swoon. She looks up at Arthur - wearing a doublet and hose and tugging at a ruff, an actual goddamned ruff - and smothers a giggle.

“Shall we, my lord?” she asks, holding out her elbow. He takes it with narrowed eyes.

“You’re enjoying this far too much,” he says accusingly.

“Be nice and I’ll let you test the frozen lemonade later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @meejit at tumblr, who wanted to know how Ariadne would dream "THE BEST REN FAIRE OF ALL TIME," with Ariadne in court velvet and Arthur in a ruff.


	13. standing on a cliff face...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Standing on a cliff face, highest fall you'll ever grace, it scares me half to death. Look out to the future, but it tells you nothing, so take another breath...

Arthur has faced death. Not just dream-death, actual death. Staring down the barrel of a gun, watching an explosion happen in what seems like slow motion, the sickening feeling of a knife dragging against his ribs.

And he can handle that. It’s part of the job. It’s a risk he has allowed for in his plans. He knows he’ll die someday. Everybody dies.

Standing in front of this plain wooden door in an old building in Paris is far more terrifying. He wonders for a moment if he’s going to be sick. He has no idea what lies on the other side of that door.

(That’s not entirely true - he knows the apartment, he knows the sagging armchair and the posters tacked up and the books piled everywhere, he knows how you have to jiggle the handle on the toilet to get it to stop running and how it’s never occurred to her to fix it, he knows the way the morning light slants in over the bed and the enormous pile of pillows that she hogs for herself - but it feels suitably melodramatic for the mood he’s worked himself into.)

(He is being a fool.)

He’s a fool, he tells himself, rehearsing for the next moment. He was a fool to leave and think he could do the job without her, and she made it clear she was not doing the job anymore, and he made his choice. The only real choice.

He’s terrified.

But Arthur has never let fear stop him from doing anything, from joining the Army or starting the dreamshare program or following Cobb right into the seediest parts of the business. He’s not going to let it stop him now.

He knocks on Ariadne’s door, and waits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for @charmingpplincardigans at tumblr.


	14. standing on a cliff face, part 2

Ariadne opens the door and looks up at him, a moment of surprise giving way to a set jaw and narrowed eyes.

“You look like shit.”

Arthur sags a little with relief that she hasn’t just shut the door in his face. “Probably. Can I come in?”

Ariadne looks at him suspiciously, peering past him. “You’re not carrying flowers or any of that nonsense, are you?”

“No. But I could get some if you want.” He’s too scared to smile. Ariadne exhales slowly.

“I want to know why you’re here, Arthur.”

“Because I love you,” he says. That’s the most important part. “I love you and I was an idiot and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left. But I want to come home now. I want you. I love you.”

Ariadne looks at him levelly, her face impassive, and Arthur has to suppress a flare of nausea. Then, finally, she tilts her head. “When you say you want to come home. Do you mean until the next job?”

“I mean I’m home for good. If there’s a place for me here.” He can tell her later about how badly the job went, about the architect who couldn’t match her talent, about having a gun pulled on him by the extractor and knowing how incredibly foolish he had been. But for now he just wants Ariadne to let him in.

Ariadne takes a deep breath, then steps aside and holds the door open for him. “I guess. I mean, all your stuff is here. And you have a key already.”

Arthur steps in and shuts the door and drops his bag and immediately wraps his arms around her, face buried in her hair. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and “I love you,” and all sorts of other nonsense, and eventually he becomes aware that she’s laughing a little at him.

“I love you too, asshole,” she says, pulling away to look up at him, putting her hand on his face. He closes his eyes and tries not to rub against her palm like a cat. “I shouldn’t have given you an ultimatum. That wasn’t fair.”

“I needed the wakeup call,” he says, almost giddy with relief. And then he realizes he hasn’t kissed her yet, and talking seems like a giant waste of time when he could be doing that instead. So he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sequel demanded by @meejit and @forever-arthur-ariadne. <3


	15. superheroes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Ariadne has a superpower. Arthur is the average joe and is in distress."

Arthur cannot believe this is happening.

Of course, he doesn’t normally carry when he’s not on a job, because it’s generally more trouble than it’s worth. And usually his air of don’t fuck with me keeps anybody from fucking with him.

But his luck had to run out eventually, he supposes, and he’s cornered in a dark part of a park with nobody nearby except the thugs approaching him with guns out.

He keeps one hand up and reaches for his wallet, already chalking it up as an acceptable loss if he manages to get out of this unscathed, and then the men sort of… crumple, as if the air around them has suddenly started to press down on them like a trash compactor.

Beyond them, behind the trees, he sees a girl pushing her arms out. She makes a strange pulling gesture –

– and Arthur stumbles to his knees in front of her, somehow, he doesn’t understand and it feels like his stomach is still back there.

She’s got a scarf wound around the bottom of her face, but her eyes seem to glow golden in the half-light.

“You should know better than to be out alone after dark,” she says, her voice warm and amused, and then she’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @forever-arthur-ariadne on tumblr.


	16. "hold me close and hold me fast"

They don’t dance.

Ariadne has very little rhythm, and she doesn’t really see the point in teetering out on skyscraper heels and trying to attract attention in a club. And when Arthur suggests going to an old-fashioned swing night she deflects, sure that embarrassing herself in front of him would be even worse. God forbid she step on his feet and scuff his fancy shoes. Arthur being his usual self, he doesn’t press the issue and they lead quite a happy life without ever setting foot on a dance floor.

It’s only when they start planning their wedding that it occurs to her that dancing might be involved. Everyone will expect it, and she doesn’t want to deprive everyone else of the fun. And Ariadne does love watching other people dance, and she loves music, so she starts a playlist of music and lets Arthur figure out how big the floor should be and doesn’t think more about her own responsibilities.

One afternoon she comes home and the rug has been rolled to one side of the living room, the coffee table balanced across an armchair, and Arthur is standing in the middle of the room with his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbow.

“Hi,” she says blankly, setting down the bag of paper stock samples and looking at him. He’s smiling, that subtle curl with a hint of smugness. “What’s this?”

“I was thinking,” he says. “That in a few months we’re going to be standing on a dance floor with our friends and family. And we might want to have a first dance.” Ariadne can feel her cheeks heating up. “I know you don’t usually dance, but… I thought maybe we could try it out in private, first, and if it goes well we can decide from there.”

She takes a few steps over, looking up at him. “But we don’t have to.”

“Just try, Ariadne,” he says, eyes alight. And she’s always been a sucker for that look, so she nods and takes off her jacket, tossing it on the couch as Arthur goes to turn on the stereo.

“Should I be wearing heels?” she asks, looking down at her boots. Arthur puts her hand on his shoulder and takes her other hand, letting his right hand rest on her waist.

“You’re fine,” he says. The music starts, a tune full of romance and longing, and Ariadne represses a giggle. He’s really laying it on thick, she thinks. And then he starts to step in time to the music, counting along with it and guiding her gently, and all of a sudden she starts to get it.

They’ve always made an excellent team.


	17. first date AU

It’s awkward.

Of course, Ariadne has been trying this online dating thing for a while, and it’s always awkward. How can it not be?

But this guy messaged her with an actual intelligent comment about Paris - asking if she’d ever been to L'As du Fallafel, not just the usual bullshit about the Eiffel Tower - and she figured that was as good a reason to meet him as any.

She didn’t expect him to be quite so handsome, and she thinks absently that he really should get a better profile picture. But he’s also… stiff. Not forthcoming at all as she asks the usual ordinary first-date questions. At least he seems to be interested in her answers, though he keeps glancing away.

“So did you only do this on a bet or something?” she asks finally, and his head snaps up and he stares at her. “Because, I mean, we don’t have to sit here for another hour if you’re really bored or something. Or do I have a stain on my shirt that I missed?”

And he laughs. He has dimples. That’s surprising.

“I’m sorry,” he says finally, shaking his head a little. “I’m not bored, I’m being an ass. Can we start again?”

Ariadne raises an eyebrow. “Are you going to be less cranky?”

He sobers a little, but he smiles again. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try.”


	18. walking the dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Out walking their dog who starts chasing after the other person’s dog AU"

Henson was a wiry-haired floppy-looking little mutt of no determinate background or breeding, and Ariadne loved him beyond all reason. He’d been languishing at the shelter, overlooked in favor of prettier puppies and more purely bred castoffs, and when she’d seen him wearing a bright red bandanna that someone had tied around his neck she’d known he was the dog for her.

It helped that he was older and already trained, and knew how to behave properly and not eat her shoes or gnaw on too many of her pencils. He knew a few tricks, too, although sometimes he was stubborn and wouldn’t pay attention. And he loved peanut butter, especially on crackers.

What he didn’t do, however, was run. Which was why it caught her so off guard when she rounded a corner on a breezy spring day on their usual walk to the dog park and Henson took off. She was so startled that the leash went flying right out of her hand, and it took her a few seconds to realize her dog was running right down the street. Ariadne was chanting curses as she ran - her boots were comfortable but definitely not made for sprinting - and gasped as Henson darted across the street, narrowly missed by a cab. She ran after him, dodging a bicyclist who cursed at her, and finally skidded to a stop when Henson plunked himself down next to…

…another dog. An elegant whippet, with sleek white fur and a cord of a tail, standing and looking down at her scruffy mutt with what looked like doggy disdain. And the whippet’s leash was held by a man in a suit. Who was also holding a sleeve of peanut butter crackers.

He put a foot down on Henson’s trailing leash as Ariadne jogged the last few yards, giving her a long look up and down. Sweaty and flushed, she wasn’t much in the mood for his examination. That thing about people looking like their dogs apparently did still hold true, she thought, looking at the fine bones of his face and the way his hair was slicked back. She bent to pick up Henson’s leash, tugging a little till the guy lifted his foot.

“Sorry. Thank you,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “He’s normally really good, he never runs off, but he caught me off guard.”

“Maybe he smelled the peanut butter,” the guy said, looking down at the patiently seated mutt. He shook a couple of crackers out and offered one to Henson, who waited till Ariadne muttered “okay” before neatly taking it out of the guy’s hand. “He seems like a good dog. Except for a penchant for escape.”

The stranger looked up at Ariadne with a sudden smile. She couldn’t help smiling back. “Do you know the dog park on School Street?”

“We were just headed there ourselves,” he said, giving the other cracker to his dog, who gobbled it up with a gentle whuff. “Care to join us?”

And she did.


	19. "come on, show me your best!"

Arthur frowns.

“I don’t think it’s that unreasonable a request,” Ariadne says, sitting up as straight as she can on her lawn chair. “I mean, if you want me to build dream mazes, I need to see what they can be like. So you show me one, just so I can see what they’re like, and then I can build a few and we can test them out.”

“Fine,” he says reluctantly. Ariadne hides a grin of triumph. It’s only been a couple of days since she came back to the warehouse, but already she wants to see how far she can push Arthur. He’s fascinating. Way better than a maze. She leans back against the cushion that mysteriously appeared on her lawn chair overnight and closes her eyes.

When she opens them she’s in a maze. Hedges stretch out before and behind her, with paths appearing at sharp angles. The sun shines overhead and the sky is a clear, pale blue. Arthur is nowhere to be seen.

“Arthur?” she calls out.

“I’m here,” he calls back. He sounds close.

“Race you to the center,” she offers, and takes off. She finds her way quickly - she has, much to her own chagrin, always been good at mazes - and sits herself down on the little bench in the open space at the center. The grass here is too even, too smooth considering the hedges; it should be more uneven with the shadows they cast, or just bare dirt or gravel. Come to think of it, all of Arthur’s other dreams have been inside. There’s no breeze, but not the still quality of an airless day; there are no clouds but the sun isn’t beating down and making her sweat. Ariadne catalogues all the changes she would make but keeps them inside her head.

When she’s done with that, she realizes Arthur still hasn’t shown up.

“Arthur?” Ariadne climbs onto the bench, looking to see if she can find him. “Where are you?”

“Working on it,” he says shortly. Ariadne almost laughs.

“Did you get lost in your own maze?”

“I can’t find the way if you keep changing things,” he says, and now he definitely sounds peevish, and she chokes on a giggle.

“Oh, I haven’t changed a thing. This is all you, Arthur.”

“You’re distracting,” he calls. And Ariadne wonders what, precisely, that means. Maybe she’ll ask him, if he finds his way to the center before they wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with apologies to @fahye


	20. "will you still love me tomorrow?"

She’s listening to Carole King when he gets back. Ariadne’s music is a good barometer of her moods, and Carole King is like the enormous oatmeal-colored sweater she wears when she’s feeling unwell: comfortable, suited for melancholy days when color would be too much.

“How was it?” she asks when he comes in, looking up from where she’s perched in the window seat. Arthur waits till she makes room and sits down beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

“All right. It’s a nice spot, and… I think it was good that he finally got to see it. He didn’t before, not when he was still on the run, and then he was spending all the time with the kids and moving, so… it’s been a while.”

“And what about you?” she asks quietly.

He thinks of the simple headstone, of seeing Mal’s name engraved in stark black and how it could never sum up the woman who was his friend, his colleague, his confidante.

Arthur winds his arms around Ariadne’s waist, and she leans back against him and puts her hands over his, and they sit in the quiet afternoon and let the music fill the air.


	21. hands (NSFW)

Arthur had amazing hands.

They were elegant, long-boned, deft and dexterous. Ariadne loved watching him work, whether it was disassembling and cleaning a gun or taking notes in one of his infernal notebooks. And he was good at so many other things, too. He cooked with an economy of style, dicing vegetables far more neatly than she had ever managed. The day she discovered that he could play the piano she almost shouted with laughter. Of course he did. Someday she was going to make him play for her, and it was going to be great.

She loved to watch him undress, snapping open cufflinks and easing buttons free of their holes without fumbling once. She loved watching him undress her even more. He treated her thrift-store finds with just as much reverence, removing each layer slowly and carefully tracing each new inch of skin that was bared. When he drew her hair away from her neck and slid his fingertips down the curve of her throat, she could feel her pulse quicken.

She shivered as Arthur traced the soft swells of her breasts, calloused thumbs scraping gently over her nipples. She tried not to giggle when he let his knuckles trip down her ribs, almost but not quite tickling. Ariadne always let her knees fall open when his fingers started to trace down her thighs and into the crease of her hip, and her eyes would flutter shut when he drew one fingertip down the center of her lips.

He knew just how to work her, learning all her secrets and all the right places to stroke and tease and press. When he raised his fingers to her mouth she took them in eagerly, sucking till they were wet and he pulled them free to slide back over her clit. He rolled it between two fingers, knowing she loved the pressure and the treatment that was almost too rough, listening to her moans and cries and kissing her cheek as he rubbed her harder. 

It usually ended the same way; one finger sliding inside, then another, always seeming impossibly long and deep, his thumb still circling hard over her clit and working it in tandem with the thrusts inside, his mouth finally sealing over hers for a kiss until she cried out and shook beneath him, hips bucking hard against the bed.

“One of these days you’re going to sprain my wrist,” he said, waiting till she’d quieted to pull his fingers free, then meeting her eyes as he sucked them clean.

Ariadne really loved his hands.


	22. "though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light"

Ariadne stared at him, and Arthur started to wonder if this had been a bad idea.

“You’re a demon?”

“That is, in fact, what I said.”

She frowned. “Is this why you wouldn’t go into Sagrada Familia with me when we were in Barcelona?”

He supposed he should have been relieved that that was her first question - not _does this mean if we have a baby it will be the Antichrist_ or _are you trying to steal my soul_ or _are you actually crazy_ \- but he wasn’t, not really. “Yes.”

“And you’re a dream-thief because…”

“Everybody needs a hobby?”

* * *

“So you’re… not going to try and exorcise me?” Arthur said, bemused.

“Of course not,” Ariadne scoffed. “What would be the point of that? You’re good to have around. Besides, I can think of way better things to do with you than banish you.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow and she blushed. “Shut up.” Ariadne went over to her bookshelf and moved several things aside, then pulled out a large, heavy grimoire. “I’m serious. Now we can really get started.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first half for an anonymous prompter; second half for @meejit.


	23. riding the bus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Ride the same bus together literally every day AU"

Ariadne had managed to score a seat on the bus, for once, but it wasn’t doing her much good. There were still so many people that they crowded around the molded benches and grabbed whatever handholds they could reach. Rainy days were always the worst for this bus line, everyone avoiding being outside as much as they could.

And, she remembered belatedly, that meant slippery floors and very jerky stops and starts as traffic crawled around them. That meant that with one particularly sudden stop one of the people in front of her slipped on the floor, lost his footing, and abruptly sat down on her lap.

She made a small noise and he looked at her with absolute mortification, the tips of his ears turning red as he scrambled back to his feet. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to…” It was the guy who was always wearing the fancy-looking clothes, she realized belatedly, who always had his hair slicked back like a Bela Lugosi impersonator. He was cuter up close, though.

He smelled good, she realized belatedly. Dammit.

“It’s okay,” she said, brushing off her lap. “Buy me a drink first, next time.” His ears turned even redder and her own cheeks started to heat up, but with the way he smiled at her she couldn’t quite regret it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is something that actually happened to @fourteenacross and I am grateful for her sharing the story.


	24. trying to hate you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Can you stop being hot please? I'm busy trying to hate you."

Arthur turned from the mirror where he’d been tying his bow tie to look at Ariadne.

“That’s not fair,” he said mildly. “It isn’t my fault that we’re meeting the mark at a cotillion.”

“It’s your fault that you’re wearing a tuxedo and I’m wearing a fucking debutante gown,” Ariadne shot back, glowering at him from under her lacquered hairdo.

“I think the organizers might have objected if I’d worn the gown,” he said, strolling over. “Can I make it up to you?”

“When this is over we are burning this dress.”


	25. seven minutes in heaven [high school AU]

Ariadne wasn’t sure how it had all happened. The last thing she remembered was sitting on the fringe of the crowd at the cast party for the school play, keeping an eye out for any of the other tech crew she could talk to. And then there had been a burst of laughter and people were grabbing her and throwing her into a closet along with –

– with Arthur, the cute stage manager. Who was looking at the door like he was going to burn a hole through it with his eyes and then murder everyone outside.

“What just happened?” she asked, rubbing her arm where someone had gotten a little overeager and banged her elbow against the doorjamb.

“They decided we should play Seven Minutes in Heaven. And that we should go first.” He didn’t even look at her, but his jaw tightened.

“Oh.” That was awful. And humiliating. And embarrassing. And other words. And now he was turning to look at her. Shit.

“We don’t have to do anything,” he said, his voice almost gentle, and now she was thinking about kissing him and how it would actually be a wonderful idea and fuck shit goddammit. “If you don’t want to.”

“What if -” Her voice cracked and Ariadne could feel her cheeks getting even redder than they already were. “What if I wanted to?” she whispered.

Arthur looked at her, one hand coming up to brush her hair out of her face, and smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the tumblr prompt "playing Spin the Bottle or Five Minutes In The Closet"


	26. texting about toppings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Text]: What do you prefer, chocolate syrup or whip cream?

[thearchitect] Neither.  
[thearchitect] Honestly, Arthur, how long have we been working together?  
[thearchitect] And you still don’t know how I take my coffee?  
[thearchitect] So much for your vaunted powers of observation.

[a.i.w.] You’re the one who sent me out last week for a mocha frappucino.

[thearchitect] Yes, because it was eighty-five degrees out and we’d been working for ten hours.  
[thearchitect] That was an exception.

[a.i.w.] Sorry for not being psychic.

[thearchitect] WAIT  
[thearchitect] I THOUGHT YOU WERE PSYCHIC THIS WHOLE TIME  
[thearchitect] EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED

[a.i.w.] Pretty sure you’ve already had enough caffeine for the day.


	27. honeymoon.

They argue about it for months.

Okay, “argue” is putting it strongly. But compared to how smoothly the rest of the wedding planning goes, the honeymoon is a major sticking point. 

The problem is that they are both so widely traveled that every destination one of them brings up the other dismisses. Arthur has a few cities he can’t go to at all, Ariadne tells stories of disastrous food poisoning and lost luggage, and neither of them are any good at just lying around on a beach for a week.

Besides, when your life has been spent hopping from hotel to hotel for different jobs, staying in yet another one doesn’t hold that much appeal.

In the end, they don’t go anywhere. They spend ten days in Paris in the apartment they chose together, with their work phones and laptops turned off. They visit all the museums they never have time to go to, and linger for hours in restaurants, and go for long rambling walks through the city. Arthur buys fresh flowers every morning and Ariadne buys new sheets for their bed. They spend long, luxurious afternoons reading in companionable silence on the sofa and watching old movies. And they spend hours and hours in bed.

It is their honeymoon, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the anon prompt " A fic about Arthur & Ariadne's honeymoon, please? :)"


	28. storm

“I’m sorry,” Arthur says.

“It’s not your fault,” Ariadne replies, lighting another candle. “Unless you can control the weather, in which case I think we need to have a very long talk about your awesome superpowers.”

That earns a tiny smile as he takes the candle and sets it on the mantlepiece. “But this was supposed to be our vacation. And we already had to reschedule it twice. Because of work. So it is my fault.”

Ariadne stands up, joining him in front of the fireplace. “But, again: you didn’t make the storm.” She hooks a finger in the collar of his shirt, tugging him down for a kiss. His hands go around her waist just like always. The heat of his hands through the linen of her dress is startling.

“So,” she murmurs against his lips. “We don’t have enough candles to read by…” Arthur starts kissing his way along her cheek and down her throat. “And there’s no TV, and no signal for our phones…” His hands slide up her back, untying the halter neck of the dress. “How do you suggest we keep ourselves occupied?”

“Got a few ideas,” he murmurs, and her dress falls to the ground. Ariadne laughs.


	29. things you said that I wish you hadn’t

In the days after he left, she wondered why he did it. Why he went white, strange little spots of red appearing on his cheeks, before he picked up his things and left without saying another word.

She’d thought he would say it back. That was all. She’d thought they understood each other, that they shared something more between them than the IV lines and the sheets on her bed. She never expected him to run out the door when she told him she loved him.

They were between jobs, and he was always a difficult man to get hold of when he wasn’t immediately present. And if he’d run away from her at that moment she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what he had to say. She wasn’t sure she could see him without her palm itching to slap him right on the cheek, summon up words of poison and barbs to tear him apart just as he’d torn something out from inside her when he’d left.

The letter came a week later, folded around a scarf of sunny gold.

 _Dreamers should never fall in love_ , it said. _And lovers should never live their lives inside a dream._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @meejit on tumblr.


	30. things you said under the stars and in the grass.

It’s a warm night, so Arthur is more amenable than he might otherwise be when Ariadne picks up the bottle of wine and tugs him down from the porch of their rented house and down onto the grassy slope of the hill below. And contrary to assumptions about his fussy exterior, he doesn’t object at all when she pulls him to sit down right on the grass to look up at the stars. He definitely doesn’t object when she lies down with her head in his lap; he just leans back so she can see.

“You can hardly see them in Paris,” she points out. “Too much light. I love cities but I hate that. You can never see the sky.”

Arthur tries to remember the last time he was out in a small town like this, far away from the bustle of commerce and the rarefied circles in which his targets moved. “I never thought about it that much,” he says. “Not a lot of time for stargazing.”

“I bet you know all the constellations, though, don’t you? Boy Scout astronomy badges and all that?”

“I was never a Boy Scout,” he reminds her. “And I only really remember a couple. Orion, the Big Dipper. Polaris.”

“The north star,” she says dreamily, looking into the sky. “Always guides you home.”

Arthur looks down at her face and touches his thumb to the smooth, unfamiliar circle of metal around his finger, and thinks he doesn’t need a star to guide his way. Not anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @xaedificare on tumblr.


	31. things you didn’t say at all.

He sold his apartment in New York. And the one in L.A. He let the lease on the apartment in Tokyo go, too.

His suits started to fill up the closet, half and then more, taking up the empty space beside her jackets and the one interview suit she owned. A hook appeared on the pantry door with an apron hanging off it, plain basic white canvas with simple ties, and her knives were now sharpened meticulously. Some days he brought her a fresh tulip or a box of macarons or a new scarf, just to see her smile.

He took fewer jobs, transitioning out of the business, working with her to figure out what else they could use the technology of dreamshare for. When she decided to continue on for her doctorate, he organized her applications into files and kept endless cups of coffee at her elbow when she was trying to finish her portfolio late at night. 

He curled around her every night, lips brushing against her bare shoulder. He never said the words, but Ariadne heard them in every breath across her skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @kittyypryde on tumblr.


	32. 5 headcanons about... film noir AU

1) The first time Arthur sees Ariadne is just beyond the barrel of a small but businesslike revolver. He isn’t offended; after all, he’s just broken into what he thought was an empty apartment. How was he to know she was drawing the view from her window of the city by night? In the dark? She’s an odd girl, but her reflexes are good. He likes that. (He likes her.)

2) He should maybe question her brains, though, because anyone with half an ounce of sense would have called the police after a strange man picked their lock and entered their apartment. They would have called again after the explanation that he’s on the run, accused of a crime he didn’t commit, waiting to hear from his partner so that he can make a break for Mexico. But she sizes him up and asks how sure he is that his partner hasn’t already sold him out, so maybe she’s smarter than he is after all.

3) She doesn’t bother turning the lights on and he has to fumble his way to the bathroom; he’s in there when there’s a knock at the door, and he reaches for his gun before he hears her soft voice, low as she explains to some busybody neighbor that everything is fine, that she had the radio on, that she was a little clumsy and knocked over a glass and that was the noise. He eases the bathroom door open when he hears the front door shut and gets his first look at her in the light. She closes her eyes against the brightness, her satin robe and the rich corona of her hair making her look like the best kind of trouble.

4) She turns out to be right - except it’s not his partner who sold him out, it’s their boss, knowing nobody would take the word of a couple of thieves over a respected businessman and owner of half the land around this crappy town. It’s not his finger pulling the trigger, not his bullet that passes so close to the boss that he startles and falls backwards over the edge of the bluff. It’s Arthur’s gun in her hands, her dainty white gloves that will bear the blood of this man’s death.

5) He only has time for one kiss before he flees, crushing her to his body with one hand and drinking her in as he eases the gun from her hands, knowing that kiss is going to have to last him for the rest of his life, knowing he’d gladly throw himself over that cliff too for her sake.

(The kiss only has to last him till she gets his telegram from Peru and the three-week journey thereafter. She asks him to keep the lights down. He doesn’t need the light to find his way to her.)


	33. kissing scars (on both of them.)

Arthur's scars are more obvious, the marks of a man who's lived his life carelessly. Ariadne finds them each as she unbuttons his shirt and pushes it away, as she pulls down his trousers and looks at him all spread out across the bed. 

Her lips trace over the graze on his bicep from a stray bullet, the scatter of faded lines in a starburst across his belly. She mouths at the orange-peel skin of his back from scraping down a road. And she kisses his kneecap, the one that Mal shot in a dream, because it still aches from where it was smashed in real life sometimes even if it doesn't show. She kisses the long line down his forearm from broken glass and the shorter one that crosses his palm from where he deflected a knife from his face and nearly severed all the important tendons. She kisses over his heart, where he bears the scars that nobody can see, and she silently promises to keep it safe. She suspects he knows it anyway.

But Arthur surprises her. He finds things out and never says a word. He just kisses her shoulders, tense from a long day fighting with her advisor about her research. He kisses down the shallow trench of her spine, stiff from being held so straight to try and be seen. He worships each breast, erasing every cruel remark from former lovers about their size, and convinces her that they're perfect. He kisses her stomach where the anxiety roils and quiets her worries that she'll never be respected. 

And then he works his shoulders between her thighs and kisses her right at the center until she forgets everything and everyone, until she shakes and cries out, until there's nothing left between them but skin and sweat and breath and love.


End file.
